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We have seen that John the Baptist has an independent tradition from that of Jesus. John had his own disciples who continued to adhere to the cultus of John after was imprisoned, then after his death (think of Apollos Acts 18:24f). The John tradition had developed its own birth story, which was used by the Lucan writer. The gospel writers gathered what they could of the John tradition. From Mark we get that he was a messianic precursor. From the shared material of Matt and Luke there is an apocalyptic message. From Luke we find a social message defending the poor.

There is a definite tradition that is John's. The interesting thing for me is that that tradition doesn't need Jesus. It predicts a messiah and thus has been used by the gospels, but while they need John, there is nothing christian about his message. He is another watcher for the Jewish messiah. We are told in Acts 18:25 that Apollos "taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John." Obviously the writer of Acts here is (in his eyes) logically conflating John's messiah with Jesus in his knowledge of the Johannine religion.

You'd think that a John able to recognize the messiah in Jesus would point his followers in the right direction, but they were blithely unaware of Jesus. Given the survival of the Mandaeans into the 21st century -- hopefully they've survived the Iraq war --, the christians' Jesus seems to have been irrelevant to the baptist's religion.

John by the indications given to him in the gospels was a nazirite, just as were the figures of the sources used in the birth narrative for him in Luke, ie Samson and Samuel. The Hebrew source for "Nazirite" was NZYR, which is the most likely source for "nazarene", as I have argued elsewhere. Acts says that the earliest christians were called the sect of the nazarenes. Was this reference taken over from John the Baptist?

Is the christian religion a Pauline adaption of Johannine messianism, which features an already come pseudo-messiah, Jesus?


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Huon

It seems to me that dualistic religions do not need any messiah, or savior. They have enlightened teachers, which is much different.

The gospels say that JtB predicted Jesus, but in this case, the gospels say what suits the Christians, not necessarily what suits JtB !

Lucis

john was a hippie like jesus. they followed hinduism, sort of. john didn't eat much, and he didn't have any material wealth, but jesus didn't need to be like that because he was already perfected.

Rick Sumner

If memory serves (and I'm sure it does, I just can't get the reference thanks to a two year old with a penchant for ripping up books), Raymond Brown once argued that the prologue to John was originally written with JtB in mind. This would seem to be a strong point in your favour. Likewise I think we can deduce from John's gospel (eg 4.1) that there was some sort of rivalry between the Baptist's community and the early Christian movement.

I've long thought that writing against followers of JtB is one of the primary motivations for the fourth gospel. The two movements, in this hypothesis, would need to be relatively similar, or the rhetoric wouldn't work.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Chili

John was the son in "Woman there is your son" when Jesus died who himself is the persona that must be crucified to set the messiah free. To have a persona to crucify one must have 2 natures first: one that is intuitly ours [re]born of water from the netherworld and the other is consciously ours [re]born of fire in the conscious world. Of these two John is the messiah and Jesus is the imposter to be crucified on the cross that represent the very sins of the man to whom these two natures have been clarified. Note that now both John and Jesus are personifications of forces that have an effect on our volition as the naked animal man, who here was Joseph unto whom these two natures have been identified. Once this dualsm is made the internal battle begins wherein Jesus is crucified to set the Man free from slavery and sin (= peace on earth) and definitly not send to convert the rest of the world to make it a better place to live (= make war to get peace on earth). Jesus is alive means that Jesus is from this generation as the means to the end (I am the way) but the problem I have with the John tradition is that they will not have a Jesus to crucify in 'this generation' who is born out of the controversy between right and wrong in the mind of the beholder. That is why it is said that God has no grand-children and we as much as must take Jesus from the cross and place ourselves upon it (instead of crashing at the foot of the cross and there oxidate until we die) . . . which then makes Jesus greater than John in that he has presence as the nazarite in action. IOW just as Elizabeth is the wine that Jesus made so is John the life that Jesus lived until he was finished doing that and can be raised subservient to John, which is indicated with Mary being taken under the care of John. Gnosticism is a contradiction all by itself that must cling to the past because it has no regenerative component buit in its system and is doomed to die regardless of how noetic the Gnostic once was. Does not have to be since the Nazarite vow is instilled upon us by nature which makes Jesus free from sin and the bearer of the cross instead of builder of the cross. Yes, but there is a contraction in 'Christian religion' which now becomes the ambition of empty cross building saved-sinners.

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There is grave doubt that the Mandaeans will survive the devastation of the past 20 years. The Wiki page linked to above finishes with a plea from October 2007 written in the NYT by Nathaniel Deutsch who indicates that left to their own resources in Iraq now, the Mandaeans will probably not survive another generation.


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Amaleq13

Crossan points out that this is not necessarily so. He suggests that John may have been predicting the coming of God to deliver a Final Judgment rather than any kind of messiah. If true, the "need" for Jesus is even more diminished.

Chili

I read that spin and I think that it is tragic for sure but if we remember 'day one' of Anthro 101 we must remember that the mythology is there for the survival of the tribe and that its prosperity will increase with the increasing complexity of the myth ie. myth-building is the art that finds itself down the road and is wherein civilizations rise and fall.

spin

I had thought about such a position, but the gospel report of John saying he wasn't worthy to untie the shoelace (sandal strap) of the coming one is a little too anthropomorphic for the age (not to mention the Lucan baptist referring to the messiah). That doesn't make it wrong, just less appealing to me. What sort of argumentation does Crossan offer for the suggestion?


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spin

Jn 3:22-36. I like the way that JtB speaks with the voice of the writer of the gospel in 31-36, which would support your idea about motivation (below). 3:25-30 certainly brings out the rivalry, though it doesn't try to make sense of the implications of the existence of John's disciples.

GJohn is a quagmire for me at the moment. Long ago I thought the gospel might have got its name because it originally lacked the prologue and started at 1:19, "this is the testimony given by John...." Still seems reasonable, but these days the prologue just elicits ambivalence from me.

Is such similarity that necessary? Wasn't it enough that they were rival Jewish (or Jewish inspired) proselytizing groups?


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